Category Archives: Places

Cacao tree

Cacao pods at Hawaii Tropical Bioreserve and Garden
A cacao pod at Hawaii Tropical Bioreserve and Garden

I saw this Cacao Tree or Cocoa Tree (Theobroma Cacao) at Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden. I think it’s been there a long time, but this is the first time I’ve noticed it with pods. The pods are the fruit of the tree and if you cut one open, inside you’ll find a cluster of fun-sized candy bars.

Well, maybe not, but you will find an important contributor to those candy bars, cacao seeds or beans, the prime ingredient in chocolate. Each of those seeds, up to 60 per pod, contains a large amount of fat, otherwise known as cocoa butter.

For more information about Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden, go to htbg.com.

Lava in all its colors

A variety of colors can be seen in this lava on the Puna Coast Trail (posted here).

This week’s Sunday Stills Monthly Color Challenge is ‘Lava.’ See more responses here. I don’t often run photos I’ve posted before, but this seemed like an opportune instance to rerun some older photos that are perfect for this theme. I’ve put captions on the photos and a link to the original posts for those interested in checking them out.

Old brown lava surrounded by black lava from a more recent flow (posted here).

Funky chicken

I first saw this chicken on the way to work a couple of weeks ago. It was pecking around at the foot of the hill below where I work. Since this is in one of the Kohala coast resorts, I thought the chicken might be removed with some speed. This hasn’t happened.

Last week, leaving work, I saw it again and stopped to take photos. The chicken immediately headed my way, then stopped, moved away, turned, and came back. I wondered what it was up to.

It wasn’t until I got home and processed the photos that I realized that there was a perfectly reasonably explanation. It was just doing the funky chicken!

Mauna Kea in red

Mauna Kea at sunset

Returning from a recent hike, I drove round a corner and saw Mauna Kea looking completely red in the setting sun. I pulled over and grabbed my camera, but by the time I took photos, a matter of a couple of minutes, only the top half of the volcano was still illuminated.

This though was my last photo from September, posted here for Bushboy’s Last on the Card challenge (see more responses here).

I took the photo with a view to making a few adjustments, which I’ve done in the bottom photo. The main thing was to crop some of the sky, which I had to include in the photo to get the full volcano. The other thing, which is a bit of an oddity with my camera, is that in certain lighting conditions it will produce a somewhat dull and hazy image. But adjusting the Lighten Shadows feature from zero to one makes the difference seen here.

Mauna Kea at sunset

Dilapidated shed

An old shed in a wood

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Dilapidated.’ See more responses here.

This old shed sits on my neighbor’s property. Up until a couple of weeks ago it was invisible. But the property is for sale ($2.4 million if you’re wondering, and yes, it needs some work) and the real estate agent had all the cane grass removed from amongst the trees. This was a good move allowing a better idea of what the place looks like. Before, the entry looked dubious at best.

My guess is that when the property sells, the shed will be among the first things to go.